Action in The Hague
1000 arrests after climate activists block highway
February 3, 2024, 7:33 p.m
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What the last generation gave up, Extinction Rebellion continues in the Netherlands: road blockages by sticking body parts to the asphalt. Hundreds of members of the environmental movement are therefore taken into custody in The Hague.
Climate activists have once again blocked a highway leading through the city in The Hague. Police removed all demonstrators from the lanes in the afternoon and transported them on buses. The police said around 1,000 people were arrested. As the public broadcaster NOS reported, the clearing of the blockade, which had been banned by the mayor, was taking a long time because demonstrators had stuck themselves to the asphalt. The city said the highway would be cleaned and then reopened to traffic.
Last year, the group Extinction Rebellion blocked the A12 motorway in The Hague dozens of times to demand that the Netherlands remove all government subsidies for fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. The group accuses the government of failing to keep a promise to eliminate tax breaks and other forms of subsidies for aviation, shipping, fossil fuel power generation and oil production. The incumbent climate minister Rob Jetten wants to submit proposals for the future government to reduce subsidies in just over a week. He asked Extinction Rebellion on Friday for “a few days of patience.”
After a good two years of road blockages by glued activists, the climate activists of the last generation announced at the end of January that they would forego them in the future. “From now on we will protest in a different form – but it will remain unignorable. From March we will call for disobedient gatherings across the country. Instead of dividing ourselves into small groups and blocking roads, we will hold disobedient gatherings together with many people,” said the group in Berlin. The “chapter of sticking and roadblocks ends with this.”